I wanted a home for my stories, so I built Canonwell Studio
Hey everyone,
Like a lot of writers and worldbuilders—including those of us who write just for the fun of it—I reached a point where I wanted complete control over where my writing lives and what gets sent to an AI provider. I didn’t want mandatory cloud accounts, subscription lock-in, or software that treats storytelling like a slot machine.
I wanted one transparent place for my notes and ideas. Somewhere I could call a home for my story.
So over the past several months, I locked myself in a room in Slovakia and built Canonwell Studio.
Ha. As if that’s possible with a day job and a small child constantly hanging around my neck. But I have put a ton of work and research into this project, and I plan to pour in plenty more.
The first public beta, v0.1.0.0, is available now. It’s a free, local-first desktop application for Windows. I also built it a cosy little home on the web, where you can read about the project and try a limited writing demo before downloading anything:
What it is
Local-first by design
Your writing, Story Bible notes, and local projects live on your own device and remain available offline. There is no Canonwell cloud, no account system, and no behavioral telemetry in the app.
You can sync through your own Google Drive account if you want to, but that’s entirely optional.
Optional AI for Book Studio, on a tight leash
Book Studio works without AI or an AI account. If you want assistance, you can connect a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, or configure your own external provider.
- The desktop app connects directly to the endpoint you choose; it does not send your prompts through a Canonwell server.
- You can preview the assembled prompt before sending it.
- Generated text is staged in a comparison view and needs your explicit acceptance.
- Accepting an AI edit creates a safety snapshot of your manuscript.
You decide what enters your writing. RP Lab and Game Mode do require AI for their generated storytelling.
Book Studio and the Story Bible
Write continuous chapters and use named scene markers to navigate your text. Those markers stay out of your exported manuscript and word count, while keeping your scene plans close to your prose.
The Story Bible helps you track characters and your world—including appearance, background, current state, and private author secrets—so a growing story remains manageable.
The experimental stuff
RP Lab lets you roleplay inside a version of your world without changing your manuscript or established Story Bible facts. Experiments stay separate unless you explicitly bring something back into your book project.
Game Mode resolves outcomes through its rules engine before AI narrates them. The AI describes what happened; it doesn’t get to invent the result.
The honesty checkpoint
This is an early beta. Book Studio is the focus of the public release. RP Lab and Game Mode are experimental prototypes, not finished products.
Windows for now. An experimental Android version is planned, but there’s no release date. The
roadmap page is live as a placeholder; I’m not putting dates or promises on it before they’re real.
The source is private. Canonwell is free to use, but it isn’t open source. I understand that may be a dealbreaker for some people. If you’re comfortable with it, the
user guide and
technical reference explain how the app handles files and AI connections, how it works under the hood, and where its current limits are. Technical questions are welcome.
The direct installer is unsigned. The Microsoft Store release is going through certification. For now, the direct installer is hosted on Google Drive, and Windows may show a SmartScreen warning. The website publishes the installer’s SHA-256 checksum and includes a verifier that checks your downloaded file locally in your browser—without uploading it.
The public app is free. Supporting development here gets the early-access benefits described in the tiers, but nothing in the free public beta is locked behind a subscription.
There are already excellent writing and worldbuilding tools out there. I built Canonwell because I wanted continuous writing, structured lore, optional local AI, and a place to experiment with my worlds together in one workspace. That combination suits how I work, and I hope it suits some of you too. This is only the beginning.
If you try it, tell me what breaks—or what you make with it:
Cheers,
Martin
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